starting over

SUNNY GILBERT

“I went from cooking in some of the best restaurants in the world to parmigianas and fish’n chips.”

I am an Executive Chef at Austin’s in Prahran, and also a part-owner of The Window Corner Cafe in Reservoir.

I didn’t have a concrete plan to go into hospitality. After school, I got heavily involved with the marketing and promotion side of nightclubs, which wasn’t the healthiest job as you can imagine – late nights, drinking and all else that comes with it! And after a little while of that lifestyle, my mum, in her wisdom said: “Son, you better go and get a job where you can get a feed.” I was pretty skinny at the time.

So I went to my cricket club and asked if they had a kitchen hand position for me. They did and I found myself working with John Walsh, who was big news, big time in Darwin – he used to work at the Lodge for Malcolm Fraser as his personal chef. John was my introduction to a hard-working, strict kitchen environment. Continue reading →